Gryphonic

Magpie

I started online life using a multi-user “talker” that someone at the University of Warwick had written. Not sure how I found it, other than I knew a couple of people at Kingston (not a polytechnic, honest) University used it too. I’d become fascinated with magpies since my 2nd year (when I was 13) at secondary school, when in English class we did readings of a play called ‘The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew’, which had a magpie character in it. I also would set lots of magpies around the cemetery that the school bordered (as the school was closely related to and used the church there often, for assemblies and other things)

Fox

I can’t remember why prompted it exactly, but I ended up getting a “staff” position on this talker, and changed names to Fox. That was how I was known by for most of my university years, and even when I changed universities from Kingston to Warwick, I was even able to get “fox” as my username for the computer science department network.

Farthing

This was the name that I used when I first got into the Furry Fandom, back in 1994. At that time, I was using a username of ‘fox’ bac in university, but didn’t fee that ‘Fox’ as a handle would be good to use. Also around that time was a TV series in the UK called the Animals of Farthing Wood, which had been adapted from a book series into an animated TV series. Originally basing the character I used as a “descendant” from one of the foxes in this series, I went for the name Farthing. He went from a regular red fox, to a cross fox to a winged anthro cross fox.

Francisco / Frysco

Francisco was originally developed as just a RP character for a MUCK called Sinai, where he was a grey fox kitsune. His history was that he had started out in Japan, and moved west over the course of a couple of hundred years, and ended up in San Francisco, where he decided to use that name for himself. This was partly inspired by my upcoming move to the San Francisco Bay Area in July of 1997. His name was “corrupted” into Frysco by a wiz of the Sinai MUCK (and later RL friend), Lynx. It stuck, and I ended up using that name more than Farthing, and eventually changed over.  These days, I think most people still know me as Frysco more than any other name.

Frysco became a gryphon due to my involvement with the Gryphon’s Guild web message board, and the Lorikeet part was (I think) thanks to a suggestion from Lyosha there.

Morse

He was a costume that I made for a Halloween one year. I’m not sure that he was originally intended for Halloween, but I got him finished in time for it. I think that I was thinking of the Poe poem Nevermore in part, but of course he is a magpie, not a raven. Though somehow I ended up going from that to thinking about a fictional detective drama show I remembered enjoying from the UK called Inspector Morse, and pretty much pulled this character’s name from that, even so far as keeping the same trait of “while he has a first name, he doesn’t care to use it”. (Later we did find out that the Inspector’s first name is Endeavour, but that’s not the first name of my magpie!) I later retroactively created character history for (my) Morse where he once was human, but ended up becoming a bird thanks to some magical feathers he bought for his hat while in costume at a Renaissance Faire, and ended up somehow getting transported to a world where he somewhat (but didn’t completely) fit in. I’ve tweaked with his background more so that alternatively, he fits into the Karen-verse, where he got cursed by a necklace that turned him into a complete bird for five years, before meeting Karen and finding out about a special plant that can keep him human…for a while, at least.

Tseatah

I needed to get a name for the “critter” I was getting from White Fox (before he used the name Arend Studios), and wanted to get a name that was “uniquely Canadian”. To find such a name, I went looking went looking at online map resources (google Maps may have been around then) and found a First Nations reserve, a small one, not too far away from Chiliwack, in B.C. that appeared on the map as “Tseatah No.2”. At the time I had no idea how properly to pronounce it (though now figure it might be similar to the silent T of Tsawassen), so used a hard T instead ; Te-Say-Tah.

Kanshin

This guy came about because Marylen costumes came out with a griffin costume. I already had bought a red fox and silver fox from them, but wanted the griffin. Yet I didn’t want their standard design. Instead I was able to get them to change the colors and fur lengths to get him to be a little more magpie-like. His name came, again, from Lyosha, as apparently that was the name of some relation that she had in her personal canon, but said I could usethe name  anyway with no relation to her. I set out to make this character my hockey mascot type, even getting him a Grand Rapids Griffins jersey. I’ve been trying for years to actually get him at a game that team is the visiting team at, and have come close twice. Sadly, I think that window has closed for good.

Lutalo

I had gotten to know Lance Ikegawa, who was well renowned for his costume creations already during the relatively early ConFurence days. I had really wanted to get something by him, and after Dark Natasha got a maned wolf (which I had considered myself too), I wanted to get something unique and a challenging, so went with an African Wild Dog instead. At the time, he was the first AWD fursuit out there, and I remember getting a test fitting of the undersuit down at San Diego Comic Con (the first and only time I’ve been) and then debuting the costume at an AnthroCon back when it was at the Adam’s Splat/Mark in Philidelphia. I wanted to set him out as a hunter/warrior, and I believe that Lutalo does mean that in some African dialect.

Napier

This hyena started out named Bhob and was part of a set of three made by Lance back at ConFurence 8 (maybe 9).  I loved it back then and when I found out that he was the only surviving member of the trio, made an offer to rehome him. I had no idea of his name, so renamed him Napier, with some cunning. He was a hyena, and hyenas are renowned for laughing, as if they’re in on some kind of joke. going from there, I remembered that the name of the Joker in the Batman movie (which my uncle-by-marriage had worked on) was Jack Napier. I thought that was clever at the time.

Nikoli

This snow spotkat was named for my original intention for him, not what I ended up doing with him. I wanted to get a Russian military officers uniform for him, as I somehow thought that would be appropriate for a snow leopard, and the name Nikoli sounded Russian. He almost was named Rasputin, because of a particular song.

Lasrach

After seeing a gryphon (the Neopets character, Lord Kass) made by Lance Ikegawa, I was inspired and wanted to make my own. Working with Scribblefox, he produced some art design for a hippogryph, and I took this and with the help from Diadexxus worked up some color designs. In the end, I went for a black/red/orange scheme, which I felt gave him a kind of fiery appearance. In choosing his name, I wanted something exotic sounding which appropriately described him. I found the word “Lasrach” in Irish Gaelic which meant “flaming” or “blazing”, which seemed quite apt. Jax the bat (who has since disappeared) ended up making the head, and I got help from White Fox on making the fiberglassing used in attaching some piping to some bike gear armor that formed the basis of the wing harness.

Cackle

After seeing Cobb the blue jay, made by RedXIX with MikeYote, I was inspired to do my own bird. At the time I was still around the #fursuit channel on IRC and had a habit of light hearted and fun mocking of things folks said. So, the idea for a mocking bird was formed. I wanted a name that seemed appropriate to the idea of a”mocking” bird, and Cackle seemed like a good idea.

Tiwaz

This tiger was made with two goals in mind: to be something I could use for events with our local community event mascot group, HelpingPawz, and also to fit in with whatever the current theme was for the Mountain View (California) spring parade. I think the theme was something to do with jungles that year. As for his name, for some reason I thought of an old UK Saturday morning kids show called Tiswas that ran from 1974 to 1981. Manipulating this name a little bit into Tiwaz made it sound ‘right’ for him.

Kootenay

I’ve already mentioned Cobb the blue jay by RedXIX, and now they had made Caspian the tern for Orzel. I really wanted to get a bird from them too, but what? I wanted to stick with a corvid, because without a doubt – of course, dating back to magpies – these are my favourite family of birds. I decided to go with a Steller’s Jay, because I live now in British Columbia, and that is the provincial bird. I also figured that I could bring him to some of the community events, and people should recognize what kind of bird he is. Hah! Of course, many people just have no idea. As far as his name, I felt inspired by a street names again. I was originally going to go with Ioco, based on Ioco Road in Port Moody. But, in the end I figured that people could read his name as Loco depending on the font his name was written in. I decided to use a name I’d seen on another sign on my drives into work; Kootenay. I think that given that he’s a “representative of the BC province”, having a name of one of the regions seemed more appropriate. Also, someone else is now using the name Ioco for one of their costumes.

Penryn

This guy is still relatively new, and doesn’t exist yet as a costume – but will do by mid-year. I wanted to go back to my roots again with magpies and get a new magpie costume. Even though I still hold Morse in fond regard, Morse is very much specialized to the Renaissance Faire outings. So, I wanted something a little more toony for convention and other appearances. Figuring that I am going back to my roots on this, I wanted a name that reflected that. I looked for names that were around the school where I first became fascinated with magpies, but couldn’t find anything appropriate. Then after that, I looked at where I lived, but in the end went with something connected to where I first was an ‘online’ magpie – back at Kingston University, which was on Penrhyn Road in Kingston. Manipulating the name again a little, taking out the ‘h’, I chose Penryn.

A couple of weekends ago I attended Rainfurrest, the furry convention in Seattle that pretty much filled the void that Conifur left. For the most part, it was a reasonable con, but a few isolated incidents created a black mark that might be very hard to recover from.

The first was something that was strewn all over social media: a guy in the hotel convention space lobby area wearing what looked like a pup hood and nothing but a diaper below his waist. RF has long had a reputation of “catering” to the “cub crowd”, and it’s no secret that a number of their staff is part of it (based on the “crinkle” ribbons seen around this year). But actively catering to it? I don’t really think so. While RF has not officially commented on this picture (because they rarely officially comment on anything, thanks to continually poor PR skills), I would like to believe that this person was told by security to go out some pants on at least. In the scheme of things, this is a relatively minor issue anyway.

Then there were the rumours about diapers being left various places; in stairways, on cars, and so on. I spoke with someone who had one left on their car, and they said it was “unused”. Now seriously, do you think that the “cub” group – who know that they’re getting some pretty bad PR themselves right now – are that clueless to go around and deliberately make themselves targets? They’re targets enough already, and likely they were being targeted here to try and smear that group and try and make them look more responsible for the ills of RF.

The bigger issues is the damage that was caused to the hotel – something that RF did officially comment on.

Usually at conventions there is always some form of minor hotel damage. I include things like elevators falling out of operation here, of which one of the ones going up to the main convention center broke on Thursday early evening. I actually saw that happen, and it was not malicious at all – just an example of how bad those elevators are in general. I was coming up the short flight of stairs to the lower elevator lobby and someone had just pressed the button to go up. They saw me and attempted to hold the doors…but not using the door open button; actually putting their hand against the door edge to try and stop it to close. Any decent elevator should detect and obstruction and stop trying to close, but not these ones. As such, the elevator broke. Wasn’t malicious and just an accident by someone trying to hold the elevator for someone.

Other issues included the hot tub (always a problem for any con) getting broken, because something (believed to be towels) got into the pipes and blocked them. Once again, the con’s failure to deal with PR let rumors run rampant on social media about defecation causing the shutdown of the hot tub. I’ve heard such rumours before at other conventions (one of which may have been RF last year) and they’ve never been true once.  The only thing that ever came close was a hot tub at a completely different con getting shut down because a couple of people decided that having sex in it was a good idea. Anyway, regarding this rumour at RF; I decided to find someone on RF staff that was either on the hotel liaison side or very close to them and get the story – which is where I found out about the blockage and it likely being towels. Once I had that, I put out the news on places like Twitter & Telegram to debunk the rumour with something that was close to fact.

The remainder of the issues, which can be found on RF’s “open letter to attendees” at https://www.rainfurrest.org/2016/index.php/2015/10/05/a-letter-to-our-attendees/ included a flooded bathroom causing damage to a hotel office below it, multiple petty vandalisms, and thefts. There were also multiple emergency services callouts (ambulance and police), which doesn’t really put a hotel to ease as to how an event is going.

And now, as of last night, RF posted on the “Location” page of their website (so, not in any really visible place) that they won’t be back at the SeaTac Hilton for next year. Whether this was the hotel deciding “enough is enough” and actually breaking the contract, or the convention and hotel mutually deciding to part ways, is not known. Of course, RF PR being what it is (i.e., “bad”) this news about the con needing to find a new location was not announced by the con, but found by other people and tweeted about – which just sets the rumour mill running again.

Where could RF realistically go?

Nearby in SeaTac there’s the Doubletree hotel, just down the street. But the Doubletree is owned by Hilton, and hotels talk to each other. While moving there is possible, the relationship that the con has with Hilton no longer helps it and possibly hinders now.

Downtown Seattle? That brings a whole new level of expense, as well as trying to find a hotel that has enough rooms and function space. Certainly the con is not big enough to get into the Convention Centre yet.

Bellevue? Located on the east side of Lake Washington, there’s quite likely a hotel over there that might have enough space that isn’t owned by Hilton. It won’t be as convenient for the airport, but I think that it’s likely a contender.

Does the convention already have something in mind? I think probably. The convention had grown enough over the past few years that it was busting the seams of the SeaTac Hilton, and a move was very likely for 2017. No doubt that potential venues had already been looked at, and now the timetable is accelerated a bit.

Before I end this ramble of consciousness, I’ll mention again how poor RF’s PR skills are. They’ve been consistently bad in announcing various deadlines over the past years, and the failure to react to rumours during the con itself. Now, I know that during a convention people are busy. I’ve staffed conventions from 1998 onwards, held various director level positions within conventions, as well as been a vice-chair and chair of Further Confusion. But one thing that I also did was run FC’s social media from 2008 until 2012 (I think?) I had posted all the announcements on various mailing lists and forums from before then, but the Twitter account started in November 2008, after I saw what Midwest FurFest was doing with scheduled tweets. One thing that I found during my year as chair (FC in January 2009) was that Twitter was a great way to find out about problems before con ops even knew about them, and I saw the value in that. My vision from then onwards was to have a Twitter client running at con ops searching on mentions to the con’s Twitter account or the convention hashtag to find out what people were saying about the con, so we could get a heads up on things quickly. I got so much resistance to this, because people were too busy and no-one could be spared. Sometimes we did get a client there running, but I don’t think much attention was paid to it.

Yet the events of this past RF show that there is a need for an increased social media presence during the convention as well as before it. You can see when rumours start, and then get an official notice out to squash them quickly. If you start having problems with petty vandalism, you can put out a notice to inform people to watch out for people doing such and report them to security. There is just so much you can do to make people aware of things, and when people are aware of things – even you don’t give them the whole story, but enough – then your attendees can help the convention stop (or at least, significantly reduce) the amount of bad things that happen. Yes, certainly some things need to be kept quiet, but not everything. A convention is run for the attendees, and the attendees are on your side. They want the con they’re at to keep running, so given a chance, will be able to help by keeping an eye out for things.